


Opening Doors

by chamomiletea (airandangels)



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Dungeon, Fluff, Illusions, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic, Short & Sweet, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27642011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airandangels/pseuds/chamomiletea
Summary: A short fic in which I again engineer a fanciful and unlikely way for a magical mishap to bring Jaskier and Geralt together.Trapped in an underground chamber with four mysterious doors, the two both discover and reveal more than they had intended.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 8
Kudos: 131





	Opening Doors

The door behind them slammed shut and disappeared. It was as if the bricks on either side of it multiplied and rushed into the space to fill it as solidly as if it had never been there. It would have been quite a nifty effect if it hadn’t meant they were trapped in some kind of mad sorcerer’s dungeon which had initially appeared just to be an old building that Geralt thought might be worth investigating. Just as the bricks filled in completely Geralt hit the wall with a shoulder-charge and bounced off it. 

“Fuck!”

“Good effort,” said Jaskier, in a spirit of fairness and also of trying to keep calm because being trapped in a place like this was quite a new experience for him. He would appreciate some reassurance along the lines that this sort of thing happened to Geralt all the time and he wasn’t worried at all. 

Geralt kicked the wall, but this was more of an emotional outburst than an attempt to make a breach. “Fuck,” he repeated, with less anger and more resignation. 

“Now what?” Jaskier asked. 

“Shut up and let me think.” Geralt turned and looked behind them, into the space they had only briefly glimpsed before realising the wall was closing up at their backs. Jaskier turned and looked too, if only because the wall clearly wasn’t going to do anything else interesting. 

It was a round chamber with a ribbed, domed ceiling. A large oil lamp hung on a thick chain from the apex of the dome, too high for either of them to reach, and cast a flickering light on the walls, all equally old and dusty-looking reddish-brown brick. There were four wooden doors set in the walls at roughly equal intervals, if you assumed the vanished door behind them and another in the blank wall directly opposite were part of the original plan. 

“I wonder where they go,” Jaskier said. 

Geralt was glaring at the doors with deep suspicion. “Most likely a trap,” he said. 

“Like we open one door and a million spiders rush out on us? Or a torrent of toxic sewage? Or a blast of fire?” Jaskier asked. 

“Or what looks like a passage out of here and we follow it until we’re exhausted, find a door, open it and find we’ve just got to the opposite side of this room,” said Geralt. He paced around the room like the caged lion in the menagerie Jaskier had seen when he was eight — no, not like that, because Geralt was still looking for a way out. The lion had been moving automatically. He was restless but he knew he was going nowhere. Geralt thought they might escape somehow, despite his usual predictions of impossibility and doom, and that bucked Jaskier up quite a lot. He followed him.

“Fucking sorcerers,” Geralt muttered, stopping in front of the first door, as you went widdershins. It was black oak, ornately and grotesquely carved with what looked like writhing, suffering forms of the damned. 

“Bit vulgar,” was Jaskier’s assessment. In the middle of it at door-knocker height was a silver plaque showing the same wolf’s head that Geralt wore as a pendant. “Does that mean it’s for you?” Jaskier asked. He looked at the next door along and gave a little exclamation of surprise. It was the same unpleasant design, but its plaque was golden and showed a buttercup. “I think that one’s for me. Is it trying to get us to split up?”

“Don’t go anywhere without me,” said Geralt, “and don’t touch anything.”

“Right.”

“I mean  _ anything.” _

“I got that, thanks.”

“Not even a fingertip because you want to see if it’s hard or squishy.”

“Oh my gosh, Geralt, that was one time!”

“And you nearly got your hand bitten off, so this time listen to me.”

“These doors are obviously not squishy,” Jaskier mumbled crossly, folding his arms. 

“Don’t lean on the walls either, I’m not climbing down after you if you fall into another oubliette.”

“Ironic it was an oubliette but you’ve never let me forget it.”

Geralt glanced around the chamber one more time. Four doors, two dark and two light wood. Two silver wolves and two golden buttercups. No other signs or symbols. No smells except damp, dust, brick, mortar, iron, rust, lamp oil. His own smells of leather and metal and dirt and blood, Jaskier’s smells of soap and silk and resin and perfume and nervous sweat. It didn’t help him to know Jaskier was scared, it just increased the sense of obligation to protect him and the resentment thereof. If he’d made a more decisive effort to drive him away from the first, maybe they wouldn’t have ended up like this; then again, maybe not. Quite possibly if he’d killed Jaskier outright, or more passively let him get killed by any number of things he’d blundered into, he would just have followed him as a ghost. 

At least ghosts didn’t smell musky or flutter their heartbeats at you in a distracting manner. 

So nothing useful and no alternatives he could see to trying the doors. It might as well be this one first. 

“Stay behind me,” he told Jaskier. He held his sword at the ready, gripped the door handle firmly and threw it open. 

A gust of very cold wind blew into their faces and stung their cheeks with specks of snow. 

The door seemed to open onto the outdoors, but it was a moonlit night out there, and not more than half an hour ago they’d been outside on a sunny morning. 

That was one reason to think what he was seeing wasn’t real. The other was that he was looking at himself dying. 

An order to stay behind Geralt didn’t mean he couldn’t crane to see over his shoulder, but now Jaskier wished he hadn’t because what he could see was so horrible. There was another Geralt lying sprawled across the rocky ground outside. He was trying to drag himself forward. He couldn’t move much because one of his legs was gone below the knee and the other was — oh gods, the other was tangled up in a trailing loop of his own entrails. He was still struggling but he was  _ dead,  _ he had to know it. A huge dark shape, breathing heavily, steaming in the night, was patiently stalking closer. 

Geralt slammed the door. 

“Fucking shitstain bastard,” he said, with feeling. 

“What was… what…”

He turned and found Jaskier was very pale. His big blue eyes were wide and staring, and actually brimming with tears that spilled through his lashes when he blinked. 

“It wasn’t real,” Geralt said.

“No, I — no,  _ you’re  _ real,” said Jaskier. He put his hand on Geralt’s arm and squeezed it as if to be sure. “I thought I was going to be sick.” He seemed to be calming down, some colour returning to his face, and there weren’t any more tears. Probably just a reaction to the cold wind. 

“You’ve never been in a battle, have you?”

“I think I can do quite nicely without one,” said Jaskier. “But what  _ was _ it? Why did we see that?”

“It’s a fear,” said Geralt. “This is one of those bloody annoying  _ intrusive _ magic set-ups that shows you your fears, to fuck with your head.”

“That’s what you’re afraid of?” Jaskier asked. “Dying horribly? All alone?”

“Isn’t dying horribly all alone what most people are afraid of?” Geralt asked. 

“Maybe not quite so  _ vividly,”  _ said Jaskier. 

“It isn’t so much a fear,” said Geralt patiently, “as what I know will most likely happen, sooner or later.”

“You poor man,” said Jaskier faintly. 

“What?” said Geralt, getting irritated. “You’re the one who likes to sing about how I reek of death and danger and all that poetic bullshit. That’s what that looks like. Are you saying you don’t like it now? It  _ upsets _ you?”

“How could it possibly not upset me to see you in such a state?” Jaskier retorted. “Or anyone — but especially you.”

“You don’t need to get upset, because it’s not real. Anyway, that door over there is presumably yours, so let’s make it even, see how  _ you’re _ afraid to die.” He strode over to the dark buttercup door. 

“Hey!” Jaskier exclaimed. “Private!” He sprang after him and tried to interpose himself between Geralt and the door. An undignified struggle ensued. Geralt was much the stronger of the two but Jaskier was as tall as him and not much thinner, so he was certainly large enough to get in his way, and wriggly and determined to boot. It was a stupid thing to fight about and Geralt already wanted to stop, but he was annoyed and embarrassed and felt exposed, and he didn’t want to let Jaskier win. He was also fighting with the worst sort of handicap, that he didn’t actually want to hurt Jaskier much, so it was a lot of squirming and shoving and “Piss off, bard” and “Ow! You dick!” and knees and elbows and  _ then _ he got one hand braced on the wall beside the door and one on the handle (Jaskier was stuck in between both arms) and managed to tear the door open a few inches against Jaskier’s best efforts to hold it shut. 

He couldn’t see anything inside, Jaskier’s face was right in front of his glaring at him, but he heard a storm of voices, booing and jeering and calling names, with a few that stood out from the throng, a sharp “no son of mine” and a shrill “ashamed of you” and a snarling “fuck off, you disgust me” — oh. That had been his own voice. It took the fight out of him for a moment and Jaskier managed to shove the door shut with his back and then slapped his face. 

“I didn’t know I was going to see something private of yours! You did!” he snapped. He was red in the face and sweating, and his heart was pounding. 

Geralt backed off. “Sorry,” he said.

“Good!” said Jaskier. He tugged down the front of his doublet, which had got twisted round and up in the struggle, and pushed back his hair, which was flopping into his eyes. “You’re so fucking rude. I’m sure you were horribly brought up but there’s such a thing as basic decency.”

“I didn’t think of it as private,” Geralt said, which was half a lie; he hadn’t thought  _ Jaskier’s  _ fear would be something that needed to be private because Jaskier was more or less a normal person. “But I’m sorry.” Twice in one minute, if he didn’t stop Jaskier would start expecting it. “Let’s just forget about it. I didn’t see anything.”

“You heard it, though, and the words are the worst part.” Jaskier made another effort at straightening his clothing and regaining his composure. “We’re not all afraid of getting our guts ripped out and our arms and legs torn off, you know. Some of us are more scared of abstract things, like shame — or rejection.”

“You’re not going to die of shame,” Geralt reminded him. He hesitated. “You don’t disgust me at all. You’re just really annoying.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Jaskier with a wan little smile. “That’s so much better.” He walked away, holding his own elbows as if to hug himself, leaving Geralt beside the grotesquely carven door. 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Geralt said. “I’d say you can look at my one again but that would just upset you.” He looked around the room with loathing. Typical bloody smart-arse sorcerer playing mind games and getting them to fight. 

Jaskier had wandered over to the lighter-coloured doors. They were warmly varnished golden wood, and while the dark doors were jaggedly carved with crude incisions and sharp ridges and distorted, ugly shapes, these ones carried lovely, smooth, delicately detailed reliefs of flowers, ferns and animals. 

“Hang on,” said Jaskier. “These doors are like opposites. Or to put it another way, those ones are like  _ you _ and these ones are like  _ me.  _ So if those two show us our fears, then  _ these _ two must show us our… hopes?” He turned to face Geralt again, his eyebrows rising and a mischievous light growing in his eyes. “Dreams?  _ Heart’s desire?” _

He made a feint towards the golden door with the silver wolf plaque. Geralt dashed to it and slammed his back against it. 

“Don’t even think about it,” he growled. 

Jaskier laughed at him. “Who says I want to see that? What would it be? Your horse?”

“I know you’re just being a dick because your feelings are hurt, but leave her out of this.”

“A goat?” Jaskier suggested. 

“Fuck off.”

“Want to see mine?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. 

“I don’t need to see yours. If you open that door it’ll just be a room heaving with naked women. You’re predictable.”

“Fuck you, Geralt, fuck you very much. As if that’s the extent of my dreams and ambitions. As if I’m not an artist. You’re so insulting!”

“You said I wanted a goat!”

“I was just being cheeky, you mean it!” Jaskier stamped over to the door with the golden buttercup plaque. “I should just go in here where it’s  _ nice _ and leave you to rot!” He yanked the door open, not looking inside, still glaring at Geralt. 

“Jaskier, wait! This type of thing —”

“With your goat!” he added, went in and slammed it behind him. 

“— is always a trap!” Geralt kicked the door behind him with his heel, savagely. “Fuck!”

Now he had to go in and get him. Whatever was beyond the door behind him was an illusion he knew better than to be tempted by, but you could never be sure Jaskier knew better than anything, especially when he was emotional. He’d just have to go in and drag him out of whatever fantasy fleshpot was inside before it drained the life out of him. 

He strode over to the buttercup door and pulled it open. Jaskier was too far inside already simply to reach in and haul him out by the scruff of the neck. He was standing in what looked like a large, elegant bedroom with tall windows standing open to admit a soft breeze and show a sunset sky. Everything here quietly breathed good taste and prosperity, from the hangings and the portraits on the walls to the carpets on the floor. There was a large tester bed with snowy linen turned back, and a bathtub stood before a fireplace where a few low flames were crackling on rosy embers of applewood. 

There was nobody else in sight, certainly no naked women. 

“What,” said Geralt, frowning in confusion, “your heart’s desire is a hot bath and an early bedtime?”

Jaskier jumped and looked at him guiltily. “Maybe I just want a life of refinement and comfort,” he said, “did you think about that?”

“If you wanted that you wouldn’t go wandering all over the continent after me,” Geralt said. He crossed over to Jaskier and grabbed his arm above the elbow. “Come on, before something happens to you.”

“Ow! Get off!” Jaskier said indignantly. 

“Wait,” said Geralt, realising what he had noticed a moment ago that struck him as off. “Someone’s just been in that bath.” There were soapsuds on the surface of the water and wet footprints on the mat under the tub. “Someone’s here.” His hand loosened enough for Jaskier to snatch his arm back, rubbing it and glaring at him. 

A door in the wall a few paces away from them opened and for the second time today Geralt was seeing himself. This copy of him was whole and in good health and moving as if perfectly relaxed and comfortable. He was also naked except for a towel around his waist, and he was carrying a mug of ale, from which he sipped just as he looked up and saw the two of them standing there. His eyes dilated and his whole posture shifted imperceptibly into readiness to fight. He lowered the mug. His grip on it was shifting and Geralt could see him preparing to throw it, as the only weapon he had readily to hand. While it was in the air as a distraction he would be lunging over to the fireplace to grab the poker; it was what he would do himself. He would be at a huge disadvantage against an opponent in armour and properly armed, but he would still try it. 

“Jaskier,” the other Geralt said, his voice low and intense, “that’s not me. Step away.”

“I think there’s been a really funny misunderstanding,” said Jaskier with an awkward little laugh. 

“If you hurt him, whatever you are,” the other him said to Geralt, “you’ll take a long time to die.”

“That’s it, I’m out,” said Geralt, holding up his hands. “I’m not fighting me naked, this is fucking ridiculous.” He walked out. Behind him he heard Jaskier say, “You seem lovely but I’ve got to go,” and the other him say urgently, “Love, wait!” as the door swung shut. He stood there with his eyes screwed shut and his hands clenched and his face and ears and neck burning. A second later the door opened again and Jaskier scurried out. Geralt looked and found his face was scarlet too. 

“Don’t suppose we could just both get amnesia about that,” he said, looking at the floor. “I never meant for you to see — him.”

“How could you think I wouldn’t go in after you?”

“No, I meant you to follow me, I just didn’t think he’d be there because, and this is the really embarrassing part, stupidly I thought I’d given up and got over it. I thought I could just be your friend.” Jaskier rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes still fixed on the floor. Geralt was right that one didn’t die of shame but he certainly felt almost mortally embarrassed. 

“Given up?” Geralt felt like he was trying to think with half a brain. Everything was moving too fast for him. Something else came into focus. “That was a home,” he blurted out. “That was  _ your  _ home. With me.”

“Er, yes.”

“I was at home there.”

“Yes, I mean obviously you would never settle down like that, I know that,” Jaskier said quickly, “but as long as I was dreaming, I suppose, I just… dreamed.”

“You wanted me to be part of your home,” Geralt said. 

“You’re… a bit stuck on that,” said Jaskier. “I mean, I wouldn’t have thought it was the shocker, compared with me being hopelessly in love with you.”

“You’re in love with me?” Geralt asked dumbly.

Jaskier looked at him properly, and blinked at him like a startled owl. “I thought you  _ knew _ and you were just ignoring me. I haven’t been subtle!”

“I didn’t think you were serious. How could you be? What about  _ this _ ,” he gestured at himself and his life in general, “makes you want to make it a part of your life for good?”

“Oh, Geralt,” said Jaskier softly, reaching out to him, “only everything.”

“I…” His shoulders sagged as he realised how far out of his depth he was. “There’s something you should see.”

He went over to the door with the silver wolf plaque and opened it. 

He knew in general terms what he was going to see, but seeing it in its particularity, looking and sounding and even smelling like a real place, made his chest hurt and his eyes sting. 

It was a bedroom too, a much smaller and plainer one, but warm and dry. It was night and the weather outside was wild, a rough wind pushing at the shutters on the window. There was a fireplace, also burning low. There was a pile of gear in a corner of the room, swords and saddlebags and a lute case. There was a bed warmly heaped with quilts and furs and sleeping in it was Jaskier. As they stood looking in at him he stirred, rolled onto his side, rubbed his nose and opened his eyes. Geralt shoved the real Jaskier, his Jaskier, to one side of the door where he could hopefully see but not be seen. He didn’t want another confrontation. He didn’t expect an illusion of Jaskier to think he had to fight his double but he might suggest a threesome and he couldn’t process that just at the moment. 

“Oh, hello,” said the other Jaskier, gazing at him calmly, a soft smile blooming on his face. “I wondered when you’d get back. Come to bed and get warm.”

“I — can’t,” he said. “There’s one more thing I’ve got to do first. I was just… checking on you.”

“All right,” said the other Jaskier, rolling over and snuggling down again with his back to the door. “I’ve put a hot brick in the bottom of the bed,” he said drowsily, “so when you get in, put your horrible iceberg feet on that, not on me.”

“I will,” he said. 

“Love you,” said the other Jaskier, sounding half asleep. 

He didn’t have to say it back. That wasn’t a real person. It was just a wishful dream that he’d never been able to stop himself having. 

“Love you,” he said quietly, and closed the door. He stood with his hand on the handle, not able yet to turn around. What he hadn’t seen before was that the silver wolf was surrounded by a garland of buttercups. He looked over at the other heart’s-desire door. Around the golden buttercup was curled a sleeping wolf. He felt Jaskier’s hand on his arm. 

“We want the same thing,” Jaskier said quietly. “I want it a little bit fancier than you do, but we want the same thing.”

“It looks like it,” said Geralt. He turned his face back towards the door in front of him. It was easier to look there. 

“Why did you never  _ tell _ me?”

“I thought… once you had what you wanted... what I thought you wanted, you’d lose interest and wander off.”

“Geralt?”

“Yes?”

“You’re weird.”

“I know.”

“So when exactly did you trip over from genuinely wanting me to fuck off to just holding out on me because you were afraid if you gave in I  _ would _ fuck off?”

“I don’t know. It crept up on me. By the time I knew I was doing it, it had been a while.”

“Can you look at me?” Jaskier asked. He didn’t think he could bear it if Geralt wouldn’t look at him. He wouldn’t know it was really real. 

“Not easily.”

“Try.”

After a moment Geralt turned his head and met his eyes. His face was still flushed, and his expression was very stiff, as if he didn’t know what to do with his face for this feeling. It was there in his eyes, though. It was very definitely real, and Jaskier felt his heart pounding and a rush of fizzing energy like the foam of a breaking wave all through his body. 

“Say you love me,” he said eagerly. 

“I already said it,” Geralt protested. 

“Say it  _ to me.” _

Geralt closed his eyes a moment, then opened them and said quietly but clearly, “I love you.”

“And I love you. And I’m not going to lose interest. Why would you think —” He faltered. Geralt thought that because he knew him. “Not in  _ you,  _ Geralt,” he said earnestly. “Never  _ you.” _

“I,” said Geralt, and stopped. He moved his mouth once again as if trying to find a word that wouldn’t come, then leaned forward and kissed Jaskier’s lips. Jaskier flung his arms around him and closed his eyes because they were in danger of spilling over again. He felt Geralt’s arms close around him and discovered how extremely uncomfortable it was to be held very tight by someone in armour and how very much he did not care because he was exactly where he wanted to be forever.

Jaskier’s lips were unfamiliar and warm and shockingly soft, and the smell of him had just turned hot and dark and musky, and his pulse was thumping and surging so much faster but just as hard as Geralt’s own. He gave a soft husky moan in his throat that trailed a red-hot icicle up Geralt’s spine. 

“It’s not supposed to feel like this just to kiss,” he breathed. 

“Of course it is,” said Jaskier, his eyes shining. “You just needed me to show you. Try it again.” He combed his fingers into Geralt’s hair and kissed him deeply. “Oh… you know, being trapped underground to starve to death is a horribly ironic way to get my wish to be with you for the rest of my life. But I’m still so happy.”

“We’ll die of thirst before we starve,” said Geralt. “But I’m happy too.” He smiled, slowly but, to Jaskier’s eyes, radiantly. “I’m happy.” 

“Oh my gosh you’re so gorgeous.” Jaskier kissed him again, stroking his bristly cheeks. “Even when you’re telling me I’m going to die of thirst.” He hardly noticed a deep grating sound nearby, but he felt it when a breeze blew on them. They both turned to look and saw that a door had opened in the empty wall opposite where they came in. There was a staircase going up and there was sunshine at the top of it. Geralt grabbed his hand and practically dragged him up the stairs at a dead run. 

Out in the light they heard a rumble behind them and turned to see the stairway and door caving in. In moments there was nothing but a scar in the ground filled with rubble. 

“What the fuck,” said Jaskier, baffled. 

“Yes,” said Geralt. 

“Was that some kind of magic underground chamber of make-you-confront-your feelings?”

“What kind of fucking deviant would build a thing like that?” 

“You’re still holding my hand,” Jaskier pointed out. 

Geralt looked at their joined hands. “I may not do that as much as you’re hoping,” he said. He didn’t let go, though. Jaskier beamed and stroked the inside of his wrist with his thumb. With those cornflower-blue eyes shining at him, Geralt felt as if everything was an opening door.

**Author's Note:**

> [The end theme music for this fic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FZbcoWrUsw)


End file.
